AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

🎉We're celebrating 25 episodes of The 4 am Report this week with our guest Dr. Monisha Ravishankar. In this episode with talk about the art and science of building an online brand in 2020. (We also can't get enough of the many sides of Monisha - you need to listen to fully get why we are so fascinated with this guest and the many hats she's worn over her career. To say multi-talented is an understatement). ⭐This episode is for you if you're trying to bring together many different interests. ⭐Or if you're trying to find that hook to set yourself apart from the the 'lifestyle entrepreneurs' out there. ⭐Or if you wonder about social sharing lines when it comes to your professional account. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: *** Monisha: Okay. I am a light sleeper, so I have to mention that there are very many things that keep me up at night. But in terms of the marketing aspect of late, I have had this particular topic that has been keeping me up at night, which is what exactly is my presence? Who am I on social media? I've always been a part of social media. I have an account on most of the platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, et cetera. And I've always had one side to me. But of late, I've been thinking hard about, okay, I've always been a multifaceted person, so why not be able to show the world who I really am, share my lifestyle, and it could probably help someone out there, or someone could have a positive day just learning something new about me. But it also kind of gives me the question where should I be sharing all aspects of my life with the world? There was a time when I was quite active with my creative side with media, and of course my life was out there in the public. But this has almost been a decade, and then I moved from India to Canada and been working on my life as a dentist. And the last few years has been all about working full time as a dentist. I'm also a mom. I have a four-year-old girl, so it's been home, work, and somewhere in between, you could say at 4 AM, I woke up feeling, "This has just gotten so monotonous. How do we break this monotony?" And that's when I realized I'm not doing what I actually love doing, which is being a multifaceted person, which is actually being in touch with all aspects of things that I love to do. So what is stopping me? Is it because I'm a mom? Is it because I work full time as a dentist? Is it because being a professional, I'm worried about not being taken too seriously if I get back into media or any aspect of the creative side, even being a dancer or a theater actor. So I want to be able to break that monotony and show people out there that you can actually do different things. The question is how you manage, how you balance your lifestyle, and how you make the time for it, make peace with yourself and be confident about how you're taking that step forward. Will: Right, right. And you know what? First of all, I do want to say I would definitely follow a social media account of a dentist/actor/ballet dancer/TV personality/news anchor. So right there already, I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued. You said you've been basically using social media for your dentistry right now. Is the ultimate goal here to actually use your social media as a platform to gain employment in the other fields as well? Or is it more to entertain friends and family and yourself? Just looking at the goal of what you're wanting to do right now? Monisha: Almost 10 years ago, probably 8 to 10 years ago, when I was very active with media, social media wasn't as active. The world of influencing and stuff like that didn't exist back then. Even if it did, it was in a very small scale. So I got on social media back then mainly to keep in touch with friends, with family, anyone I've lost touch with across the world, and it's been that way all these years. And like I said, I've been busy with being a full-time dentist and a mom and yada yada. So I haven't really gotten into serious aspect of handling my social media account just to take care of putting out my personality out there like I explained previously. The dentist profile that I was talking to both of you about has been something that I've done recently, just the last year. The original handle that I've always had is more a personal account, but the dentist handle is something that I started a year ago when I actually started thinking about, "Okay, why not put my life out there?" Now, I don't want it to be a boring account just showing dentistry. I'm pretty sure not many people out there love going to the dentist and it's not like they're going to be very interested just looking at dental work on social media. Of course, I would love to share my work out there. Who doesn't love having a smile makeover? Who doesn't love knowing stuff like how you can do small changes that could impact your oral health without actually having to visit a dentist? You know what I mean? We know how expensive dentistry can be and so if I could give

In this episode of The 4 am Report, hosts Susan and Will do what they do best - conduct a 19 minute laser coaching session for a business that has their empire built on one social media channel. If that's you, listen up. Common Ground 416 is a fitness space focussed on personal coaching that is the answer to the large gym chains ⭐️ They have a strong instagram presence with an engaged following - but they wonder if the model-rich content is forbidding to the average person. ⭐️ They have a base website that they'd like to leverage. ⭐️ They have an instinct that LinkedIn will help reach their downtowner audience but they question of they'll fit among the charts and graphs. See what advice and tactics we have for them to quickly fill a few gaps and take things to the next level. Including: 📖 Using DMs for bookings 🔌 E-commerce and calendar plug ins to automate bookings 😂 Entertainment on LinkedIn to 'stop the corporate scroll' + much more. 20 mins. Worth your time if you want more automation digital ROI in your small business. Here's the transcript: Will: So this week we're talking about a classic situation that growing small businesses face. They have success doing a few marketing activities, they see ROI on those activities, but in order to keep growing, they're thinking about expanding that marketing function, but don't know exactly what they should focus on. It's uncharted territory. You only have so many person-hours in a day and so much budget, so trying to decide what's best for the business and what to focus on can be a challenge. Susan: And our two guests joining us this week are facing that exact scenario. So we wanted to invite them here to chat about the marketing successes that they've had, look under the hood, talk out a few different things that have been working, and maybe help figure out some parts for the future. So this is something that we really like to do with our small business clients, roll up our sleeves and figure out that solution that works because it's never one size fits all. Will: So it's my pleasure to introduce these two gentlemen. We have Adam McDermot and Griffin Nykor who work for Common Ground 416, a downtown fitness studio, personal trainers, but also they wear the hats of marketers and help promote Common Ground. Adam and Griffin, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, about Common Ground, and most importantly, what's keeping you up at night. Adam: Hi, Susan and Will. Thank you for having us on. I'm Adam, and Griffin, we both are from Common Ground, we are trainers, and we also manage and promote the business. So we're quite a small business. We've been open for about 18 months. We had a really good start, so lots of Instagram marketing, lots of buzz. And now that we've grown to more trainers, we have more of an issue in getting leads for our business, which has never been so much of a problem before. Most of our marketing comes through Instagram. So it consists of stories, which we post throughout the day, most days and some posts through the actually Common Ground Instagram along with our Instagram posts. So that's worked really well, to begin with. Now, like I said, as we're growing, we want to diversify our marketing and figure out a more efficient way to do that. Susan: So talk to us, does Common Ground have a marketing strategy in place? I know that often small businesses kind of need to hit the ground running, right, and see what works and really lean into the things that are working. So that means sometimes that strategy hasn't been fully thought out, or that audiences need to be more defined, or somewhere that the brand voice and the messaging can use a little bit of help, or whatever. So talk to us about what's happening with your strategy. Griffin: So we don't actually have a formal marketing plan per se. Like Adam just said, we use a lot of social media, i.e., Instagram, Instagram Stories, Instagram Ads, but we don't have a specific plan being like, we're going to post an ad on this day for this many days to try and hit this many people. But rather when we feel like we're getting a little slow, or we feel like clients are starting to be able to work out on their own, or go away for holidays, or things like that, we try to ramp up our advertising in order to help keep the business growing, keep the business busy, and allowing us to keep training people and keeping people healthy. Will: Now when we're talking about, I guess, who's seen this, and I followed both of you guys on Instagram, I've worked out with you guys before, so I find it really impressive that you guys are so committed to that, Instagram Stories, posting workouts, that sort of thing, I'm just wondering if you were to say who your primary audience is, a secondary or even a third, currently who you're talking to, who you do want to be talking to as you grow. Adam: So when the business started, the business owner definitely had more of a direction towards models that he worked with. S

⚡New episode alert ⚡ The 4 am Report is back with another episode 📣 Facebook...🤔 Despite everything you've heard, for certain audiences, this is still the place that matters most. In this episode of our wonderfully concise and informative micro podcast, The 4 am Report, we talk to someone who runs her successful business entirely through Facebook Groups. Learn how Lara Wellman, certified business coach and owner of the coaching practice, The Biz Studio, rules the Facebook algorithms. Season 3 of the The 4 am Report is diving deep into the marketing things that keep business owners and communications departments wide awake at night. We're calling the season 'The Dark Webbing of Marketing.' Think Black Mirror meets Years and Years meets our middle-of-the-night insomnia. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: Will: Lara, for small business owners looking to make Facebook great again for them, tell us why a group and not just a page. Maybe run down some of the benefits you've experienced from using Facebook groups. Lara: Facebook in general is a really great tool. I like to use Facebook because most people, not all people, but most people are hanging out there in some capacity. Facebook pages are a great tool. I think most businesses should have one, but a group is the place where I get to connect with people. It's where, as me, a person, I get to know other people. I get to engage with them. I get to build community. I get to feel like I'm having real connection, not just sort of blasting at them. I think that that's the primary difference with a group is the people in the community have just as much of an opportunity to reach out and share, connect, offer value as I do. Whereas the page is always just me pushing forward. I think that's the big difference, and that's why it works so well. Susan: Yeah, it's that two way conversation. And beyond two way. It's not just two dimensional anymore. It's multidimensional, like you were saying, with people. It's not just you opening a conversation, it's other people coming in and asking questions. It's a crowd sourcing of ideas. I think that community aspect of it is a big part. It's certainly one of the reasons that I participate in groups is obviously the first layer of perhaps being a member of a group from someone's perspective is the fact that there's an insight scoop kind of idea. You do get some special content when you're a part of groups and that's certainly worthwhile. Then there's the community aspect of it. But also market research, like often if a group is in some way part of your customer set, it's useful to see what their pain points are, what people are talking about, what is taking their attention, who are they buying from? That kind of thing is good information that you can get out of these. Talk to us a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of how people are using groups. Lara: Well I think lots of people are using it in different ways, and it's about making sure that you know why you're using it. You have to have a sense for what it is that you're trying to create and where you're trying to take people. For me, my Facebook group is my first place to take them beyond they've heard of me to really getting to know me. Then just like you said, there's like the VIP experience, the extras they get, the way that I get to get information from them is also the market research. They get to help me figure out what videos I'm going to do, what my next training's going to be, what workshops I'm going to do, all of that kind of stuff. But that also makes them feel like they're getting a VIP thing because they're getting to have input in all of this stuff. But at the same time I'm like, "What do you guys actually want to know about?" Susan: Exactly. I think going back to that two way where you're benefiting in both ways. As well, you know from a user's perspective, I often wonder how do you fit all of this in? I know we wanted to talk about that with you a little bit is that when people are using social media, we get asked a lot. It's like, so how do I do this? How do I fit it all in, and how do I get the conversations and no one's saying anything to the stuff I posted? We're like, what are you saying to other people, is often our question. Are you hopping on there and having conversations? Are you only just popping one comment in and then not acknowledging any of the responses or not really even seeing what other people had to say? That's not a conversation. That's just a drop. So let's talk through that a little bit. How do we engage? I mean obviously we're talking about it from the perspective of a group, but whether group or otherwise, what can engagement bring to the Facebook algorithm? Lara: There's a few things there. One is a Facebook group is a lot of work, but the question is, is that worth it for you? So just like a podcast for example, it's also a fair amount of work. But if that's the thing that you want to do, if that's the thing that's fun f

Some people love being in front of a camera. But most of us don't. This episode of The 4 am Report talks about why you should consider making your face part of your marketing plan. If you're a small biz owner or an entrepreneur, your face is very much tied to your brand. And often one of your best marketing tools. In this episode of The 4 am Report, we talk to Heather Davidson-Meyn, owner of Fun Love Photography, about why personalized custom images can make your brand stand out from the competition. We're not telling you to ditch the stock photography, charts, graphs and other important design elements you use in your marketing. But we are very certain that you're missing a great opportunity to showcase some personality and make a more lasting impression people will remember. We speak from experience: Exhibit A: And… Exhibit B: Past images used to promote our material. Long story short: They worked and we got noticed. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: Susan: So Heather, let's talk that out a little bit. A key factor that stops many of us as small businesses from putting our faces on our marketing material is mindset. So, from your experience working with many small business owners, why is this? Why are they so hesitant to put themselves sort of front and center in their marketing? Heather: Well, there's a couple of places the hesitation comes from. First of all, not knowing. Not knowing the "how" and the "what," exactly. What images do you need to create, and how do you create them? Where do you go? When do you do it? How do you represent yourself? Secondly, is the whole thing about feeling vulnerable and unsure and not feeling camera ready, whether it be your hair and makeup, your wardrobe, or bigger things like feeling like you need to lose ten pounds. Susan: Yeah, I can certainly understand all of those factors. My own journey has been at first I was like, "I'm certainly not getting on video." And then we did video, which was highly produced in which it was shot ahead of time, and we were lit perfectly, and that kind of stuff. And then now we've gotten to a place where we're quite comfortable hopping onto a Facebook Live or a LinkedIn Live, and just doing that from a video perspective. And we applied the same sort of thing obviously to our shops, as well, that we've taken along the way. And I can certainly speak to the fact that getting a hold of your head space and your mindset was a big part of that. Heather: Yeah, for sure. Will: I wanted to talk about going beyond just the head shot. Of course. Yes, head shots are great. There's a purpose for them, but let's remember the one thing that makes you and your marketing stand out is that it comes from you. So you are part of that UVP. So Heather, if marketers and small business owners are out there listening, getting kind of inspired by what we're talking about and considering investing in some interesting photography to accompany their marketing. Can you give us some ideas to help get creative juices flowing? Heather: Yeah, for sure. I start the planning process with every single one of my clients with five main images in mind. Not all will apply to everyone, but they're all important to consider. So first of all, there's you. Who are you? That that could be your basic head shot. What do you look like? Can you be recognized on the street? The second one is you doing what you do. So this is just a representation of you doing what you do. If you're a maker, if you're making something; if you're a consultant, this is working with people, reading up on the latest books that apply to your field. Third is you with your products. So again, this is more intuitive for someone who's making products. Maybe you're a seamstress, you're sewing clothes, then you have product, or you're writing books. You're an author, you with your books. And sometimes it's more challenging if you're a consultant helping people with services. It's more difficult to represent, but we can still definitely show you in a way that shows what you produce. Fourth is you working with clients. Now, as I said, not everything applies to everyone. You may not actually work one-on one-with clients, but it's still important to show that you can relate to people, and it helps people to see you working with people, so that they feel like they can relate to you as well. And then finally, you being you. So, this is a little bit more personal and not necessarily completely tied to your business, but it helps people relate to you as a person. And that's a lot of what this is all about. Showing your face, showing who you are, and giving something for the people out there on the internet who are seeing your photos on your website. Something for them to relate to. So, if you love taking walks, or you're an outdoors sort of person, or maybe you love drinking coffee, or doing yoga, or whatever it is you do, it's important to put that out there as well. Now, a lot of people might struggle with envisioning

Season 3 premier of our micro podcast The 4 am Report is ready for your listening pleasure. 👍 In this episode we talk to Sarah Zandbergen about the ways (some not so good) financial brands market to women and female owned small businesses. The consensus? Things need to change and financial brands have to step things up. Hint: your women-focused content doesn't always need to be pink 🙄 Sarah's the perfect guest for this discussion as she does marketing for stnce, an organization that inspires women to confidently take ownership of their finances through open and informative conversations. stnce believes everyone benefits when women are self-reliant, self-assured, and well-informed about their financial affairs. We love everything about this. 💜 Keep listening to season 3. Released on social each Thursday at 4am. We're calling this season "The Dark Webbing of Marketing". (Thank you to @rohinimukherji for suggesting this season's title) Here's an excerpt from the transcript: Sarah: So many women that I talked to are expressing their dissatisfaction with the communication that they're receiving surrounding finances. There's a lot of platitudes and sometimes when they accompany a male spouse, the advisor's only addressing the husband. It's 2019 something's got to change. There are so many financial literacy programs out there and at stnce we believe we're not in competition with any of them. In fact, we simply feel like financial confidence is quite often the missing ingredient. Susan: This is very interesting to me and we've been looking at some numbers to try to quantify this and I don't necessarily have Canadian stats, but here are some US stats, which is kind of representative I guess. Four out of 10 US businesses are female-owned right now, and they generate $3.5 trillion in revenue. But to your point, you still have your husband or your dad who's talked to in all of the financial communication and all the content that's coming out of large financial brands and this is sort of ... there's a big afterthought. It smacks of afterthought, doesn't it? The whole thing with like, here, throw together something that's trying to flag female by virtue of being pink. It's condescending. And sometimes if you put it that way and you put a frame that sort of negative on the whole thing, that doesn't really attract people. But what is the money-making opportunity that this could stand for, I guess is one way to look at it. If you start including, shall we say financial, whether it's literacy or confidence or whatever material that attracts women, what does that look like? Susan: That's a great question. That's actually a really good point as well. And something that I wanted to touch on is the reason that we called it stnce. And so if you'll see, I don't know if there's going to be a little description down underneath, but stnce is all lower case and it's S-T-N-C-E. So there's no A, and the reason for that is we feel like that confidence, that missing ingredient. So what we say is, the A isn't missing, we're saving the space for you. And one of the other reasons that we called it stnce and not something like The Red High Heel is because we really wanted it to be something that was neutral and approachable. And yes, we're really, really marketed towards women at the moment. But going forward, again, it's 2019 it's almost 2020 let's be accessible for all genders. So back to the archaic attitude. I wanted to say that this attitude is really ingrained in the financial industry, but I believe that there's change coming down the pipe. And that's why I'm so proud to work at Equitable Bank. We positioned ourselves as Canada's challenger bank. And what that means is that we're challenging the status quo and we're looking for solutions and things that we can do differently to approach Canadian consumers. I mean, what other bank is really reaching out to consumers about financial confidence in the way that we are? I'm super, super proud of that. And so part of my role at stnce is to help facilitate this change. So I've been reaching out to groups of financial professionals and I actually run a session with mortgage brokers and financial advisors centering around how they can better communicate with their female clients. Sarah: A stat I love, and I actually use this in the presentation, is that it's estimated that by 2026, women will control close to half of all accumulated financial wealth and that is an estimated $900 billion. You combine that with the amount of women who are unhappy with the industry, again, something's got to change, right? We're here to be part of ushering in that change. Will: Yeah. That is a stat that nobody can ignore. I'm wondering when you're out talking to women, you have your finger on the policy. You said you're talking to financial professionals and how they can better communicate to women. What are some of the insights you're sharing with them? What are you telling them that they need to step up to?

And….that's a wrap on season 2 of our micro podcast, The 4 am Report. 🙌 We're calling this one "The 'chicken or egg' of financial decisions for small business" And this last episode of the season is a perfect way to close out 'National Small Business Month' as we explore the single most stressful issue facing small business owners and entrepreneurs -- 💰money💰. This brings us to the 'what came first?' analogy: As a small biz owner you want to increase your sales. But you need money to invest in your marketing function to do this. But you won't have the money to do that until you increase sales.😖 We dive deep into this topic and confront debt, borrowing and money shame with Financial Literacy and Credit Counsellor, Pamela George. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: Pamela: Most of my clients are business owners, and they're struggling to pay themselves, to pay down debt, investing in their business. Or just their personal financial commitments that they have. And they come to me most of the times and they're lost, they don't know what to do. "I have an extra $1000. What do I do? Do I invest in it? Do I pay down debt? Do I pay myself?" That's the question. What I find after going over their numbers is that more often than not, my advice to them is, "You need to increase sales. You need to increase your sales." And here's the chicken and egg analogy. They're like, "I don't have money to invest in marketing to increase sales. And you are telling me I need to increase sales." So I as a financial counselor, I take that and I do understand the issue with that. I want to say generally speaking, as a financial aid officer and as a financial counselor, I do not subscribe to borrowing money. And I do not subscribe to debt. However, if you have somebody working with you on a plan to pay back said debt, and to use the debt properly, I'm all for it. I could jump on that bandwagon. So what I tell my clients, not all of them, some of them, if they're able to take on a little bit of debt to invest in their business, not run their business. There's a big difference when you are taking out a line of credit as an example, to pay yourself and to live. As opposed to taking out a line of credit to invest in your business. So those guys who I say, "Listen, you need to increase sales." If they have access to a line of credit, I'll say, "Let's work with that. Let's see what you can afford to pay back. And that we will get backwards. Let's see what your budget allows to pay back every month. And let's see how much we can invest monthly into some kind of marketing strategy." Susan: That's such a great point that you make in terms of differentiating between expenses and investment in your business. And it's funny how, yeah, you said if sales is the number one piece of advice, you're often giving people marketing as a tool to that sales for sure. And interestingly, marketing has never been cheaper or more accessible to small business entrepreneurs than it has become now, right? With the rise of digital channels, and the availability of even advertising for cheap with things like Facebook and LinkedIn, and stuff. However, it all comes down to sort of having a plan and understanding that there are some key elements. As we were talking to a financial coach a few episodes ago, and we talked about how ROI must be looked at with marketing just like with anything else. And if you're able to deliver that return on investment, which offsets your costs towards your line of credit or way beyond that even. That's kind of what you want to be thinking about. So either as a small business owner, you need to in the case of marketing, for me it was two things. It's either you need to figure out, can you afford something to pay someone on the outside? And if you can't, can you afford to do it yourself? Right? To sort of quantify that value of your time, right? Of scheduling let's say, if you need 10 hours towards marketing a week, and if that time is going to be 10 hours of your time, then what is coming out of your schedule? Which is potentially not a great thing, right? So I'd love to chat with you a little bit about that. How do small business owners sort of quantify their own time, or just quantify an investment like that? Pamela: Okay, so it all goes back to - And everybody laughs when I say that- but it goes back to your budget. We need to have a budget for our business expenses. Most clients who come to me don't know what their monthly business expenses are. Of course, marketing is a part of that. So I will do a business budget with my clients. And I'll say, "Okay, let's talk about all the expenses you have now. Let's list that. And let's talk about what you need to increase sales, because you do need to increase sales if you want this to work for you." And we'll come up with a budget. Of course that budget at the very beginning is just a number we're pulling out of a hat right now, because we are looking at balancing the budget. But if this

Google the term 'translation blunders', and you'll dig up tons of times brands messed up their attempts at multilingual comms. Some are funny. Some are just sad. 😔 In this episode of ✨The 4 am Report✨ we discuss how marketing strategies need to be tweaked or sometimes completely changed for consumption by different speaking cultures. Our guest? Vatché Iskedjian, a translator and a specialist in multilingual communications and founder of VI Communications. With all the potential for global growth, brands need to ensure they use experts who can consult and help tailor strategy and tactics so it works in different regions. Here are some excerpts from the discussion: Susan: ...To me it sort of comes back to a very basic component of developing strategy, right? It's knowing and understanding your audience and who you're talking to, and obviously knowing that they know their culture deeply. And like you said, they can immediately see it when it's not authentic. So be clear about who you're talking to and sort of connect with them at a basic level instead of as an afterthought or a forced fit, right? We started at the top of the episode, Vatché, and we mentioned funny translation blunders, and that's always something that amuses us. So are there any examples that you're able to share? Our goal with this is not to shame anyone, but just to show audiences how rampant this problem is, right? Any that stand out to you? Vatché: Yes, of course the one that really comes to mind is the social media campaign blunder by Telus. The English campaign contains such feel good phrases like "take a deep breath, ground yourself, go kill it." But unfortunately the French was translated by Google Translate and it was really hilarious, and depending on your point of view embarrassing results. The French translation, for example, invited consumers to literally grind themselves and go kill someone or something. The president of the company had to apologize for the Telus consumers in Quebec and it just made the headlines everywhere. Today you make a blunder like that, it goes all over the world within seconds, as you know. Another one is always the classic Chevrolet Nova that really sold poorly in Spanish speaking countries because its name literally translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish, "no va." How do you want people to buy cars if you're telling them that the car will not go, doesn't go, "no va?" There are so many other examples for the time we have. Just because you're not a big multi-national, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay closer attention to create communication in other languages. That's where people such as translators and language experts such as myself are here to help you, so you make the right choices, so that you don't spend money where you don't need to, or you spend it wisely to get the results that you're expecting in that type of market. Susan: 100 percent. Just bringing that whole conversation proactively in the communication discussion is something that I think the big players do really well, but in today's world you really need to be sort of thinking about language, right? Which kind of reminds me, we were at Connex last month and we heard Neil Patel speaking. One of the things that he was talking about was how he's used language as part of his growth. Obviously Neil Patel has a whole bunch of digital content, content marketing, SEO, much more of that, and all of that was in English, right? So he obviously saw a market opportunity and there was need for his content in Spanish, in Chinese, and, you know, a few other languages he was talking about, and they invested in it. They actually did put money behind translating that content on multiple levels, whether it was voiceovers or in some cases captions and things like that. But I thought that was a really interesting point that he was making about the times we live in. Global growth is possible in today's world. It's a multi-cultural space, and in general opportunities for growth as well exist. Obviously we all have opportunities to become better in the way that we do it, but are we really thinking about things from the perspective of growth? Are you seeing any of that attitude in your clients, Vatché? Are they proactively exploring language opportunities? Vatché: We do have some clients who are doing their campaigns in multiple languages. The biggest key is for them to understand that when they say "translate into Spanish," for example they need to specify the Spanish market. Spanish is not the same if it's spoken in Europe versus Mexico versus Latin America or Southern America. I think this is one thing that the companies need to clarify. Yes, you're targeting an international audience, an international group of consumers, but again depending on who you're targeting, just make sure that you specify it, you use it properly. Even French - I mean yes, there is for example - We can use international French for companies and that can be understood throughout t

This week on our micropodcast, 🌟The 4 am Report🌟, we speak to social media strategist and all around hilarious person, Denise Alison, about something that's been keeping her up at night: the mountains of sub-par content brands and people are putting out that's cluttering up our digital landscape. Do you know the main reason content like this isn't connecting with audiences? To put it simply, it lacks personality. It's not entertaining. It's bland. 💤 All content should do two things: inform and entertain. Most people do a good job of informing. But are they making it interesting? And going a little above and beyond to make the content experience enjoyable for the user. If you want to get some content creation inspiration from an expert, on simple things you can be doing right now to up your content game and make your audience smile, give it a listen. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: Denise: I think that by now most businesses and entrepreneurs, we figured out that we need to create original content and that means educating our audience on whatever it is that we're an expert in, passionate about or whatever it is we're all about. But when you're creating content you really have four things that you're trying do. The first is to educate. The second is to entertain, which you have mentioned and we'll dive into in a second. You also want to engage your audience and excite your audience. So entertainment doesn't mean that you need to be a standup comedian, you don't need to be juggling fireballs, you don't need to be doing cartwheels. It means that you need to capture the attention of your audience and that means that you can't just type or sit there or create your content like the professor on Ferris Bueller that nobody is listening to. You need to capture their attention in some way. For me, like you mentioned, I do comedy so humor is what naturally comes to me. If that naturally comes to you, that's great. That can be a great way to connect with your audience, capture their attention. If you're not a funny person, then don't do that. You might be a really bubbly and compassionate person or there's lots of people do these cute things when they're like, "Hey love, I'm really not like that. So that wouldn't fit for me." But it's really finding your voice, putting your personality into it and just being you not trying to be someone else or not trying to be like a really washed down version of yourself where you applied so many filters and edits where you sound like everybody else but like nobody. * * * * Susan: 100%, it's all about that engagement and it simplifies engagement. I think it's such a big word and everyone keeps talking about it, but at the bottom of it an engagement is a conversation, right? You're looking to get a conversation started. You put something out there into the world, hopefully someone will say something back and then you've got it and if you simplify it that way and just try to do it the way you would actually have a real life conversation when you went into the room with a human being, you usually get it right on social media. There was this funny video that we saw some while ago which was trying to superimpose the average Facebook interaction, which is just like, Oh, hello, someone comes rings your doorbell and you're like, I vaguely know this person. And then they're like, "I knew you from 27 years ago. We went to middle school together or whatever." And then you're sort of accepting that and letting that person into your house. And it was, I guess, trying to make a security point, but you know what we're trying to say here is super impose your social media interactions into real life. And you'll handle it way better, right? Denise: Yeah. Engagement has become one of those buzzwords that's become meaningless. I'm not going to walk into a party and say what I'm looking for today is engagement. And then again just engagement for engagement's sake where I'll say a phrase or a statement and then people are going to look at me and do a thumbs up and also say, yeah, great, great statement. And then that's it. Like you said, the purpose is to start a conversation and so not engagement for engagement's sake. Engagement is like a word that social media has put on their interaction and really your goal is to start a conversation or to make that person feel closer to you, for you to feel closer to one another or connected. Get the ball rolling on, building that relationship based on some common points and hopefully they become a loyal customer at some point. Or maybe they become a collaborator or, a supplier or something or maybe they're just a supporter. But the goal is to build those relationships. Will: Something else I wanted to talk about that I think is interesting for me. Someone who, I was trained academically to write and then I was writing PR using the CP Stylebook. It was almost like when I segued more into this digital side of marketing, I had to unlearn the rules that I thou

Susan and Will interrupt regularly scheduled programming for a special Canadian federal election episode of The 4am Report. This week they invite one of their favourite guests, Andrew Jenkins, back to the table to talk about the role of digital media when it comes to the election cycle. People get their news on social media. We know this. We read headlines and have the attention span of about 150 characters. We keep up on pop culture via memes and gifs. So what does this mean for political parties? Let's dig in, shall we? Andrew kicks things off with a 101 on the rise of rich media and its impact on how we consume messaging. He talks about how we're image and video obsessed. And how everyone with a smartphone is a creator of content. Will explains a simple formula that illustrates how social media is king when it comes to getting your message out. People aren't watching the evening news. But they are sitting on their couch on their phone scrolling through Tweets and Insta stories. Of course political parties are stepping up. But social media is beast and it won't be tamed. Case in point - Will refers to how Elections Canada royally messed up an influencer campaign that had a price tag of 650K. Basically they didn't properly vet the influencers they chose to work with. Andrew talks some of the benefits of social media when it comes to the election. Politicians can't get away with bending the truth as easily. (Well, at least that's true here in Canada. We won't mention another country where misinformation via Twitter seems to be working quite well for someone). Andrew points to how people are literally fact checked by social media in real time as they speak. Will wonders if politics needs to whole-heartedly embrace memes as a way of communicating with their audience. It seems the only things getting shared these days are memes. Susan states that memes are the 2019 version of the political cartoon. So true! Andrew warns politicians to be careful with trying to create and control memes involving themselves. According to him, just keep your fingers crossed that you end up on the good side of the meme. Trying to control memes could blow up in your face. Susan and Andrew bring it back to some takeaways for our listeners. If we are getting our news about politics via social media, how can we do this responsibly? According to Andrew, it's up to us to make sure we're fact checking and following a diverse group of authorities. The episode ends with Andrew highlighting what he feels is a great benefit of social media when it comes to politics. Back in the day, you'd have to write a letter to your local MP's constituency office. Today, you add the right level of sass to a tweet, and hit post. You have a very direct line of communication to them. About Andrew Andrew Jenkins has provided social media strategy and social selling services to numerous mid to large enterprises such as CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, BMO Nesbitt Burns, National Bank, Sirius XM Canada, the Globe and Mail, World Vision Canada, and the Aga Khan Foundation. He has spent the last twenty years working in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spanning social media, wireless, and e-business. He holds a BA in Economics from Laurentian University, a BFA in Film Production from York University, and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He also taught entrepreneurship at OCAD University and currently teaches Digital Strategy at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. Andrew speaks internationally about the social and digital landscape. His entrepreneurial efforts have been featured in the Toronto Star and by LinkedIn Canada as one of their success stories. *** Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Email us your problems - your issue might be featured in our next episode! Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes with great tips, jokes and conversations - don't miss it! If you get a chance, leave a review on iTunes so that others can find this podcast too! Just click here to review, select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" We'd love to hear what your favourite part of this episode is in the comments below. Thank you!

Just in time for National Small Business Month, here's a very relevant episode of our micro podcast, The 4 am Report. We're tackling the unsexy side of marketing: how small businesses can best measure ROI on their various marketing activities. Numbers, data, analytics. It's easy for small business owners to get bogged down in all this. It's difficult to know where to start. This is definitely the case for this week's guest, Tracey Bissett, president and chief financial fitness trainer at Bissett Financial Fitness. In fact, Tracey points out an interesting paradox about herself: "I know how to help my clients think about return on investment, but how do I do this for my own marketing?" This led to an interesting discussion. What if you were to approach establishing your marketing ROI as if you were establishing the ROI on financial investments? Susan, Will and Tracey bring some cool hypotheses to life and discuss what an investor lens might look like when you assess your marketing investment. They also talk about what ROI looks like beyond just vanity metrics and data. Set your marketing goals Susan talks about how it's important to set overall goals. Is it sales? In that case, is there a certain number of dollars that need to come in the door? Then that becomes a measurement factor. If it's a question of increasing lists, then again quantifying the goal from something vague to increase the list by 20%. Get into that discipline of numbers at the goal stage. Awareness is a big goal for many people. That as well needs to be quantified. Does awareness mean you want more people to come to your page? Does it mean you want more people to be calling you? So quantify what the end result of those things are. The importance of doing a full content audit (regularly) Will and Susan talk about why doing content audits is essential to fully understanding how your content is performing. Cataloguing content and measuring it against the 2 - 3 metrics you've already chosen is the only way to see what's working and what's not. If you're looking for a guide on how to do a small business content audit, get it here. Can we approach establishing marketing ROI in the same way we'd approach it with financial investments? This is where Tracey and the hosts have a little fun. They look at three factors that Tracey says help her establish ROI for her clients: What's the risk profile of the investment What fees are involved? And are we comparing apples to apples? Susan and Will talk about how low risk marketing is doing what you've been doing. You know your audience consumes it. But it's not getting you a jump in numbers/engagement. Enter the higher risk marketing. Everyone wants to be a disrupter and get that 5X results. But it's not easy to predict what's going to gel with your audience. Some areas of marketing that are higher risk but are proving to be rewarding for some brands? Taking a stand on an issue. Newsjacking. And mindset marketing. The two tiers of measurement To keep you from the overwhelm, Will explains there are two simple tiers of measurement. The first tier is vanity metrics. Obviously that's the likes, the shares, all those things that make you feel good right away. The second tier is engagement or behaviour related. Things like where on social is the traffic coming to your web from? Or is it coming from emails? And looking at how long people have spent on a page gives you some indication of what they're reading, watching or listening to. Are they clicking to go elsewhere on your site, staying within your site? Are they putting something in the cart? All of this helps with tweaks to your UX. How using The Anchor Theory of content creation can help ease the volatility of your marketing portfolio (Look, another investing analogy) Susan explains that if you're investing time and planning a 2500-word lead magnet or a 45-minute podcast, you're putting a significant amount of effort into creating that content. So you wouldn't just throw some money in an investment and pull it out after a month. We need to look at our content creation that way. The c+p digital team call this 'anchoring' your content and then spinning it off into bite size pieces, giving it as much exposure as possible. It's not the idea of duplicating content necessarily, it's just creating it in multiple formats. For a great visual on what The Anchor Theory is all about, check it out here. How do we measure the success of The 4 am Report Susan talks through how c+p digital measures the ROI on this podcast. It's a mix of traditional metrics but then she explains how going beyond the data can give you the true picture of overall worth. One key thing is the value of the relationships that are being built with podcast guests. This means and expanding network and new business opportunities. Will and Susan have also seen an actual impact on the industry (i.e. micro is where it seems to be at). If you want to read a case study on how The 4 am Report has been one o

In a special episode of The 4am Report, we tackle the question: 'What's keeping Canada up at night?' Answer: The brownface/blackface Justin Trudeau incident. It's been a week, and some of the dust has settled around the whole topic. There have been a bunch of people that have come out and spoken about various aspects of this incident, and everyone has had the right soundbites to say around it, but Susan talks about how she feels like there's one person who captured it best -- family doctor Ritika Goel. Susan further explains, "I think it captured the feeling of many invisible minority and people who are brown, which is that she's not surprised. She's not surprised that this particular incident happened or that it was Trudeau. That's kind of thinking that's going through my head." (If you haven't read or heard about her twitter thread on this, check it out here) Why wasn't Susan surprised by this? Because encountering some level of racism is an everyday occurrence in the life of the average minority. It's not like people are jumping out at us on street corners in full brown face, but you often find that people are not really able to connect with you as someone of a visible minority on anything other than the way that you look. Susan continues to explain most people's attempt at small talk with her involves asking her for her recommendations on the best Indian restaurants in the city, or where she buys her tikka masala. 75% of Canadians feel Trudeau is a hypocrite. A just released survey showed that most Canadians believe Trudeau is a hypocrite, whether they believe he is a racist or not. And that's one of the biggest issues that's been battering his brand all year it seems. One hilarious/awkward-to-watch takedown of Trudeau came courtesy of Netflix comedian Hassan Minhaj. He relentless pokes holes in Trudeau's brand. Will comments on how it's not just the Trudeau brand but also the Canadian brand that took a hit (just google the US late night hosts and how they've reacted. It's funny). Were we foreshadowing? Will brings up that just a few weeks ago Rohini Mukherji joined the two hosts for an episode of the 4 am Report called, "Beyond the Brochure for Inclusivity", and how that episode almost foreshadowed this. The conversation in that episode centred around a discussion on people choosing lifestyles, like where you choose to work and how you choose to work, or being inclusive of people with physical needs, or being inclusive of race, or understanding what someone from a different culture needs to do in order to just travel to meet family. That kind of thing is just facets of the experience of someone else that you don't fully understand. It goes back to that empathy and that putting yourself in someone else's shoes and trying to understand for a minute what it is that they're feeling or going through. How to know when someone is truly sorry and has learned from their mistakes The discussion turns to Aziz Ansari, and how he handled being called out for unwanted sexual advances/aggressive behaviour. Ansari did what most high profile people do these days when they get caught in a situation like that - he went away. And he stayed away from the spotlight for a few months, and then came back and then gave what Susan explained was a really good, authentic apology. Unfortunately for Trudeau, he can't go away for a bit right now. Does this make it harder for us to believe he really is atoning? The takeaway Susan and Will end the discussion by referencing a book called Atomic Habits by an author called James Clear. There's an idea well captured within it. It's the idea of making improvements slowly and the fact that when you add in a 1% change to something on a regular basis, you're going to get exponential results because it's sort of equated to the idea of compound interest. The story the book tells is about the British cycling team, and how the team was not doing as well as it should. And how they made small modifications to their training on a daily basis (like every day a 1% change). They were back to winning in under one year. The idea there's really just make small improvement. This is like a responsibility. We need to educate ourselves to fully understand one another, and this is a country that's based on the fact that we welcome people of all kinds and we support all choices and decisions. Then if you don't actually live it, we're going to have to start somewhere and we're going to have to make that 1% improvement on an ongoing basis. ***** Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Email us your problems - your issue might be featured in our next episode! Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes with great tips, jokes and conversations - don't miss it! If you get a cha

A bit of my business story over here And guess what? We've convinced Strategic Business Coach, Shelagh Cummins to come on and tell parts of it, on our micro podcast, The 4 am Report. From it we hope to provide inspiration to small business owners in an episode we're lovingly calling: Why the shoemaker has the worst shoes Aka why you're probably finding your subject matter expertise hardest to apply if you're applying it for yourself. This episode is extra especially for you if you're a female entrepreneur, on a scaling mission of some magnitude, and are looking to get some great marketing insight into where your growth can come from. (These stories and actionable tips will resonate. We promise.) Think of it as a 20-minute laser coaching session - with a marketing focus. And if you do nothing else to work 'on your business' today instead of 'in your business' , let it be this. About Shelagh Shelagh Cummins is an in-demand business coach, consultant and speaker. She works closely with women entrepreneurs who want to shake their moneymaker, make strategic power moves that help them grow faster, and share their smarts and skills with premium clients who value what they're worth. Shelagh's unique background in experimental education combined with her corporate leadership training inspires her practical, hands-on approach to getting real results for her clients. Her ultimate mission is to show other women that it's possible to build a profitable, sustainable business – without drowning in debt, forfeiting family time, or working in their sleep. Website Facebook Instagram, Twitter: @shelaghcummins

Another 4 am dispatch ready for your unreasonably early listening pleasure. This week, as we go deeper into the dark, we're talking to Leigh Clements from SHOT in the Dark Mysteries and we talk about the ever changing ecommerce digital marketing space. So Leigh has a pretty cool gig! She's creates murder mysteries. (For reals!) Not really like those parties your parents threw in the 80s, though. Leigh's creations are focused on true investigation experiences 🕵️‍♀️. And people, all over the world, are loving them. Leigh is what we're calling a magical unicorn when it comes to marketing. She has run a successful online shop, ranking on page 1 of google, taking on 'The Overlord of Search', who makes 3,200 algorithm changes a year, solo. That's pretty. Darn! Impressive!! But what's keeping her up at night now, is exactly those 1000s of changes Google has made to SEO. It's a lot. And they impact smaller players who've lived by wit and hard work, just as harshly as they impact the bigger players who think mindless keywording and backlinking is the ticket to all things. And Leigh wants nothing to do with search results beyond page 1. So grab a coffee, give us 10 minutes (remember, our podcasts are micro), and go deeper into the dark with us as we discuss how Leigh and others online businesses (which is the holy grail for us, let's be honest) can own search intelligently again! Subscribe on iTunes Oh, and if you have trouble sleeping because you can't switch off your hard-wired, marketing obsessed brain, drop us a line, and be a guest on an upcoming episode. 🎙👀 About Leigh Leigh Clements is the Creative Director of Shot In The Dark Mysteries, a murder mystery company focused on true-investigation experiences. Leigh has been marketing SHOT digitally since the days of MySpace, and continues to strive to grow SHOT within the ever-changing e-commerce digital marketing space. Connect with Leigh WebsiteInsta: @shotinthedarkmysteriesFB: @shotinthedarkmysteriesPinterest: @mysterymaiden

Financial brand marketers. Take note! This episode of The 4 am Report is for you. Things are changing right now in the traditionally slow-to-change financial industry. Many big brands are undergoing major re-brands as they try to figure out this new 2020 investor. Wendy Brookhouse is an independent financial advisor, and she's tired of seeing financial brands missing the opportunity to step up their understanding of the modern investor that's very different than the investors of yore. "It's time to come up with something other than a couple on the beach in a sailboat, or on the golf course, to show financial freedom. I mean, if you can't do that, you really should go get another job!" And that's just the beginning! 🔥🔥🔥 Wendy's take is that it's about leveraging user experience and using that to deliver the financial industry responsibility to build better habits. Her big tip? Gear your marketing, just like your financial planning, to predictive indicators versus lagging indicators. See who we think is doing it well!! "Replace your quest for marketing greatness … from making big promises and absolute statements to actual intelligent audience connection, and find out the true embodiment of the client journey..." It's a woke world, and we're just getting started investing in it as marketers, right Wendy? Wendy further shares a fascinating theory: Convenience beats loyalty. We're calling this the disrupter of the future. Why is this relevant to our financial brands? You need to listen to find out, won't you? About Wendy Wendy Brookhouse is a behavioural finance focused advisor who helps smart, ambitious people unleash their money power. Wendy believes that we all have money power. It is buried under life's pleasures, unconscious spending and the desire to have the lives that everyone else's social media says they have. She invented the One Number Solution, a trademark system that unleashes money power with strategies around spending, debt, saving and safety net. Connect: Black Star Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackStarWealth/ LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/black-star-wealth-partners Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackStarHFX Wendy Twitter: https://twitter.com/wendybrookhouse?lang=en LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/wendy-brookhouse-4210701 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wendy.brookhouse.370

It's 4 am. And Season 2, Episode 1 is ready for your way-too-early-in-the-morning listening pleasure. 🙌 🙌 🙌 That's right. This is the premier episode of Season 2 of The 4 am Report - Deeper into the Dark. The topic for discussion? Going beyond the brochure when it comes to inclusivity with a PR powerhouse, Rohini Mukherji. "The problem that I certainly see is I think we lump together diversity and inclusion and they're very different. And specifically, I think we would get a high grade for diversity, but I actually would think we are failing when it comes to inclusion. And so, that's what really keeps me up at night." Rohini brings up many interesting points about retaining and best utilizing an increasingly emotionally intelligent talent pool. We talk about what we can all do to be better as we prepare for a new decade. It's a new way of working, and we need to wake up to it. This is a conversation everyone needs to be having. About Rohini Rohini Mukherji is the VP at Apex PR. About two weeks into her PR agency career, Rohini says she knew that she had been reeled in for the long haul. She's worked on both the B2C and B2B sides of the business, across sectors including insurance, banking, air transportation, fitness and food & beverage. Rohini's instinct to nerd out on the industries in which her clients operate has served her well in building integrated programming that is just as successful as it is fun to execute as a team. Outside the office, you can usually find Rohini planning her next vacation, giving her colleagues and friends (me included!) dinner recommendations, taking a cooking class, or throwing competitive darts, just for fun. Connect LinkedIn Twitter:@RohiniMJ

And that's a wrap on Season 1 of our scrappy little micro podcast, The 4 am Report. 👏👏👏 Two months ago, we thought, let's give this podcasting thing a try. We had a good idea (a MICRO podcast) and an interesting angle (capitalizing on our work stress sleeplessness). So we bought some equipment. Set up a sort-of recording studio. And invited some of our colleagues and industry friends to join us. Cut to now. 10 episodes later. And we're leaning in folks. Season 2 is coming soon. To close out Season 1 we have the "Swiss Army Knife of marketing", Phil Yetman on talking to us about strategy and end-to-end thinking when it comes to doing inorganic social media ad buys. "One thing I like to tell my clients is an ad buy on its own is like a band going on stage with just the singer. It'll probably work, but it's not going to sound as good and not going to be as great if the whole band was on stage playing together." About Phil Phil brings a design and technical background to digital project strategy and management, creating a valuable asset to the agency and clients we serve. He has planned and executed successful, award-winning campaigns for product based clients on both a local and national level, and has managed accounts with budgets ranging from four to seven figures. Phil is the "swiss army knife" of marketing with vast knowledge of both consumer and business marketing and technical skill ranging from graphic design to complex online marketing campaigns. His experience includes digital management of websites, developing digital strategies, branding, social media strategy and full scale marketing campaigns. Currently, Phil is focused on digital strategic design and integrated social marketing and search marketing. Connect with Phil Website Facebook LinkedIn

Are you guilty of copyright infringement on your social channels and don't even know it? In this episode of The 4 am Report we chat with Cynthia Mason, Lawyer and Trademark Agent. We invited Cynthia on to talk about intellectual property in a digital age, and also give us some much needed advice on where the line is when it comes to copyright infringement on your social channels. Cynthia starts by giving us a 101 on intellectual property. What you can and can't trademark. And why it's so important for businesses to do this: "Your intellectual property is what sets you apart from everyone else out there. At the heart of it the laws enable you to stop your competitors from competing with you." Then we get into an area that in Cynthia's own words is "a bit messy." With social media, brands have become a lot more relaxed and realized the need to play in pop culture speak. Sometimes, that can result in accidentally stepping over the line. Will gave the example: "What if I'm a plumber, and I tweet 'We're the Superman of sink unclogging'. Did Will step over the line? Click to listen and see what Cynthia has to say about this. Plus she gives a bunch of tips to ensure you stay in the grey area and don't cross the line. About Cynthia Cynthia Mason is a Canadian lawyer and trademark agent who helps innovative businesses protect their names and logos. Over the last 15+ years, she has helped businesses of all sizes and stages protect their trademarks, and she's passionate about teaching business owners how to protect all the hard work they've invested into growing their brands. Connect with Cynthia Website LinkedIn Facebook and Instagram: @MasonProfessionalCorporation

We're talking with someone on this week's episode of The 4 am Report who actually DOES sleep pretty soundly at night. What's his secret? "I try to discipline myself to work in a world of no surprises." Meet Kevin Lennon, a master of key messaging and narrative control. His career has run the communications gamut from a start in journalism, to working for major brands, to leading roles at PR agencies. For the past 20 plus years, he's been principal at Trillium Corporate Communications. His sweet spot is working with top executives at major companies, preparing them for those big media interviews, working on their crisis comms protocol and getting them ready to meet with regulatory bodies. We discuss the power and persuasiveness of positive, future-oriented messaging and language. Brands need to understand that everything put out there today, from a tweet to an interview with a reporter, is being scrutinized. "Make sure that every single word, every single image you put out into that marketplace is deliberate with an end goal in mind. And if you don't know what to say, don't say anything." One key take-away we got from Kevin -- investing in 'brand safety' is a must. About Kevin Kevin Lennon has more than 30 years of experience in Journalism and Public Relations and is founder and president of Trillium Corporate Communications Inc. He is known for his creativity and clear strategic thinking, his winning strategies for dealing with sensitive issues and as one of Canada's top communications skills trainers. His experience as a journalist, working for Canadian wire services and daily and weekly newspapers is regularly translated into practical advice about how to get positive media coverage — and minimize the impact of bad news situations. Kevin works with clients in the energy, entertainment, telecommunications, amateur and professional sports, resources, retail and financial sectors. He has also worked with national associations, provincial crown corporations, federal and provincial governments. He has worked internationally, managing projects in China, North Africa and throughout Latin America for major Canadian corporations. Kevin holds a Bachelors degree in Journalism from Ryerson Polytechnic University.

TODAY marks the release of episode 7! 🥳Our baby is 7 already. Where does the time go... Susan and Will talk to Business Mindset Strategist, Megan O'Neil on imposter syndrome and how that's hampering marketers in their quest for visibility at a brand and personal level. This one is good. In fact, it's so good, we broke our promise to keep every episode micro. How very dare we, you ask? Well, whenever we talk to Marketing Mindset Strategist, Megan O'Neil, she gives us so much good stuff to ponder. This time her mindset advice is so good, we just hit record...and edited NOTHING out. (Don't fret - It's still a very digestible listen coming in at under 20 minutes). Megan chats with us about the complex dynamic of the times. Constant disruption and overwhelm. Fear that holds us back from the creativity that the environment demands. All heavily fuelled by the pseudo-wokeness of the social world. The solution: reframing failure. Understanding the process. Getting that 'the people' take time to catch up to things. And coming back to what you need to, when you need to, with a strong understanding of yourself, to deliver your masterpiece(s). It's in us ALL. It sounds woo-woo. But the brain is a powerful thing! And we all need to learn to master it. Megan gives us a masterclass for marketers here. Listen to this milestone episode of The 4 am Report. Or catch it on itunes. Hit subscribe! The last thing you need is 4 am FOMO 😱 About Megan: Megan O'Neill is a Business Mindset Strategist with an international clientele. For over 18 years, she has assisted clients to break-free of limiting core beliefs, fears and patterns. Her work specializes in the area of entrepreneurial mindset—helping clients understand why they're operating the way they are, and then working to clear it at a deep level so they can transform to who they really are! To learn more about Megan and how the method of coaching can help you, visit: www.meganoneill.ca or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Megancorebeliefs/

Creating posts take a long time - especially when you're responding to every single interaction one at a time. Quite frankly, you don't have time for that. With a jam-packed schedule and countless interactions, it feels impossible to get your checklist done or even want to do it in the first place. In this episode, we're staying up with Andrea Buckett, celebrity chef and influencer, to talk about tips and tricks to grow your social media real estate while growing your business success. The first step is to start with you Like with all things, the first step is to start with reflecting upon yourself. What does your job require you to do? What tasks do you do to keep your business running? What needs to be done for your business? Then, start thinking about what you like to do. Do you like to plan or execute? Do you like to edit the photos or take them? Think of a few things you really like doing in your business - then outsource everything else. Call a friend Sometimes it's hard to know what to let go of - especially when you're so used to being in control of everything in your business. If you're going to grow, you need to let go of those tasks that you aren't an expert in. Start by giving away tasks that you don't enjoy, don't know much about or find yourself procrastinating on. If you're going to outsource, however, don't forget to consider your budget. What are you trying to achieve and how much can you afford to pay to get it done? Is it more valuable to your business to pay another talent to help me fulfill this? Once you've asked yourself these questions, you need to decide whether you need talent or technology to best fit your needs and help you build your business. Unplug and play Unplug and play is a calendar tool that schedules 4 videos, 1 audio and 4-5 visual posts a week. This ensures that your content is available through various formats for your audience to consume. For instance, you can record a video and pull the audio from it to make a podcast episode. Then you can create some visuals that depict key learnings. You're making sure that your audience is getting consistent content by scheduling and filling up your calendar with pre-loaded content. Write a job description Before you outsource work to anyone, write a job description of exactly what you want them to do. If someone tells you that your expectations aren't realistic or that the responsibilities you assigned them don't make sense for their position, that's okay! What you do need is a vision for what and who this person is. Don't underestimate multi-format micro-creators. They have the ability to create various formats for you - whether it's video, audio or visual pieces. Today, the world operates in a gig-economy. So where can we find these experts? This is where networking is crucial. Post your job description out there and ask if anyone has any recommendations. You'll be surprised to see how many people are willing to make referrals. Followers: value or vanity? People will tell you that followers are vanity metrics - which is absolutely true. However, Instagram requires you to have a certain amount of followers in order to use their link or "swipe up" features. Keep in mind that for every 100 people that you follow, 30 will follow you back. This is where you can get extra help from either talent or technology to follow the right people and engage with them at least every half hour, every day. Start by following those you admire - you want to engage with other people's content that will bring eyeballs from their following to your account. You can also do it the old fashioned way and directly ask them to give you a shoutout! Have your talent use a key message document where you will pinpoint what they're allowed to say in certain circumstances. If you go the technological route, you may want to consider chatbots. Although very controversial, this piece of artificial intelligence that assists you by using keywords. Think about who exactly you'd like to follow and define it clearly for the chatbot. Then set a low level - let's say you'd like at least 20 people to be reached and interacted with today and it will do just that. About Andrea In the food industry for over 20 years, Andrea Buckett's career has run the culinary gamut. Chef, caterer, culinary instructor, recipe developer and media personality. Andrea's creative approach to food and her ability to connect to her audience is the foundation of her success. Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Email us your problems at [email protected] - your issue might be featured in our next episode! You might also find it useful to review our previous episode about influencers with Vanessa Grant - listen here. Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes

Influencer marketing. Some love it, some hate it, but regardless you're sure to come across it as a marketer. In this episode, we're staying with up Vanessa Grant, principal of Grant Media and president of Mommyfluencer, to talk about how we can track results with influencers. Why is influencer marketing popular? We all know that Instagram has become really popular especially amongst younger demographics. Unfortunately for marketers, they are trying to block ads - potentially affecting how many people actually see your content. So how can a brand connect with their younger audience? They use influencer marketing, a strategy that helps partner brands with thought leaders within specific target audiences. Many brands hear about influencer marketing but many don't quite know how it works or how to leverage it. The first thing Vanessa does is educate the brands about expectations and how much it will cost them. Then comes the campaign to contact and choose the right influencer to work with. Vanessa creates draft contracts and creative briefs for both parties. Finally, she tracks the results and reports back to the brand. What does the influencer do? Each brand, aside from fulfilling their bottom line, aims to increase exposure and awareness. They can do this by partnering with influencers who create engaging social media content with their followers about the value of the brand. In this process, brands are able to filter which influencers match their brand and which do not. Vanessa urges us to create long-lasting relationships with those that do match the brand to prove to their audience the authenticity of the brand and the influencer promoting it. Your influencer should be a part of the team, not just a one-time promoter. The influencer should also love the brand they're partnering with! Their loyal followers will definitely be able to tell if something doesn't match the other posts or the influencer's brand overall. Choosing influencers who already use and like the brand's products will garner more results because followers already know that the influencer truly does believe in the brand and its products. When your influencer is already a fan of the brand, it will be much easier to convert their followers into fans as well. Metrics influencer? Micro influencer? Nano influencer? There are three types of influencers: metrics, micro and nano. Metrics influencers are those with over 50,000 followers such as Kim Kardashian. Micro influencers are those with less than 50,000 followers and the nano influencer has 2,000 followers or less. While it may be tempting to aim high for the metric influencer, Vanessa warns us they that typically have lower engagement rates. If you're looking to increase engagement within your campaign, opt for nano or micro influencers who typically have closer relationships with their audiences. Nano influencers are also great if they identify themselves as photographers or content creators. The extra production value can go a long way when their audience is presented with a beautiful photo or video instead of a simple picture they quickly took on their phone. You can then, with their permission, repost their content on your feed and website. Another consideration for your influencers is to look for those who have a Facebook group. The Facebook algorithm now prioritizes content from personal friends and groups over content from brands. How to better track your ROI If you're thinking of creating an Instagram campaign with influencers, be sure to look beyond vanity metrics and focus on the quality of comments or engagement. This is especially important since Instagram has taken away the "likes" count on each post (unless you're the one who posted it of course). Another tip is to set up a system to show a better Return On Investment (ROI). You can set up a page or a duplicate of your homepage that your influencer can link in their stories or on their Instagram bio. You can also set up an affiliate system where your influencers can receive a commission to track who is actually helping you generate sales. About Vanessa Vanessa Grant is a classically-trained journalist turned content writer, editor and strategist. She also runs a mom-focused boutique influencer marketing agency called Mommyfluencer. More from Vanessa: Website Instagram: @mommyfluencer, @vanessagrantmedia Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Tell us your problems - your issue might be featured in our next episode! Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes with great tips, jokes and conversations - don't miss it! If you get a chance, leave a review on iTunes so that others can find this podcast too! Just click here to review, select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" We'd love to

Keeping up with the Kontent In this episode of The 4 am Report we welcome back Andrew Jenkins, social media mastermind and principal at Volterra Digital. In this week's episode we talk about something that keeps a lot of content marketers up at night. The struggle to keep pushing out content to one's audience. It can be overwhelming and at times, seem to yield not-so-impressive results. Andrew wants listeners to know that the traditional way companies have been using blogs is a thing of the past. Gone are the days where you published 10 blogs in a month on 10 different topics. Welcome to the rise of rich media - content that is reworked into several different bite-sized formats to meet the needs of the various channels of distribution. It may sound like this is a lot of work. But trust us, it's not.You just need to figure out a system that works for you and your team. No matter what size. Andrew's advice: so instead of doing your 10 blogs. Do 4. Yes, blogs are still the cornerstone when it comes to reaching your target audience. But they can't do it alone. From 1 blog, pull out a series of tips that you can release via instagram or twitter cards. Put together a 30 second closed caption graphic video giving an overview to the blog topic (short form video with text overlay rules right now). Pull out a few compelling quotes and combine that with relevant graphics and push those out over the month. What you're doing is creating a hub of content on one topic. And you're reaching people via a wider array of channels. (Will likes to call this the 'Kris Jenner-ing' of your content. Think of all the content that's been spun and reworked from that one show. Get the headline, now?) This will save you time. And get you better engagement. And better conversion. Andrew also shares some tools he uses to further up the content creation efficiency. He often uses trylately.com's Social Post Autogenerator. It's a free tool where you enter in the url to your blog post and it basically comes up with various alternative titles, or pulls out a quote to act as a headline. The URL stays the same, but you've just used automation to repurpose that post and give it a lifespan of a few months. When it comes to video, we also discuss some great tools that make creating bite-sized, short form visuals simple. Some of Susan's favourites are: lumen5, animoto and biteable. **** Subscribe on itunes

In this episode of the 4 AM Report, we're staying up with Andrew Jenkins, principal at Volterra Digital and social media management guru. Tune in as we talk about why and how data is a dream come true for marketers and why ignoring it is such a nightmare. We ALL use data Regardless of what industry you're in, we all use data. Let's say you're a miner and you need to drill a hole somewhere. You can't just pick any spot to drill, you need to evaluate the area for the right spot and appeal to investors to justify why you should drill a hole in this specific spot. No matter what you do, our decisions are data-driven and CANNOT be ignored! Don't miss out on potential opportunities (or disasters) for your company - look at your data! Don't get lost in translation Today, collecting data is easier than ever. We all know that when it comes to data, using Google Analytics, and monitoring Facebook impressions and engagement are great ways to collect it. The hard part is presenting and explaining it. What is the "so what?" Andrew suggests placing a summary in the beginning of your presentation - whether it's a PowerPoint deck or a report, you need to explain to them why your data matters. Ask yourself, "what is noteworthy about this chart?" and how it can affect their business and stakeholders. This way, your audience gets the information they need upfront and can deep-dive into it at their own pace. Let's be honest, no one likes or is interested in getting a huge package with thousands of excel spreadsheets. Get to the point and provide an insight - your audience will appreciate this and will be more likely to listen to your ideas. The three tiers of metrics Before you look into your metrics, think about what you're trying to accomplish with your business in the first place. Ask yourself, "Where do I see my digital marketing efforts playing a role?" You need to first strategize how your social media efforts can support your business objectives and can meet the needs of your audience. When you identify the needs and how you can meet them, you can start with your baseline. The first tier of metrics is Vanity Metrics. This includes every like and share on Facebook and Instagram, every retweet on Twitter and how many followers you have. Andrew urges you to have a base community and to continually grow it. The next tier is engagement, where the growth happens. You can track its growth and the performance of your efforts to see whether or not the content you're sharing is resonating well with your audience by looking at your metrics and reviewing what has been shared. Finally, the last tier is evaluating what has happened and its relationship to your business objectives. Did your audience sign up for your email list or make a donation? Have you gained more visitors to your website? Once you have this information, you need to translate it into something that your audience can understand. Andrew suggests using charts and maps along with important insights and suggestions for the future. Regardless of what you do, data is key to your business. Be sure to put extra effort into how you collect your data and how you interpret it for others. Don't do anymore guesswork - look at the numbers. You'll be more certain of your decisions and you'll get a good night's sleep. About Andrew Andrew Jenkins has provided social media strategy and social selling services to numerous mid to large enterprises such as CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, BMO Nesbitt Burns, National Bank, Sirius XM Canada, the Globe and Mail, World Vision Canada, and the Aga Khan Foundation. He has spent the last twenty years working in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spanning social media, wireless, and e-business. He holds a BA in Economics from Laurentian University, a BFA in Film Production from York University, and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He also taught entrepreneurship at OCAD University and currently teaches Digital Strategy at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. Andrew speaks internationally about the social and digital landscape. His entrepreneurial efforts have been featured in the Toronto Star and by LinkedIn Canada as one of their success stories. Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Email us your problems at [email protected] - your issue might be featured in our next episode! Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes with great tips, jokes and conversations - don't miss it! If you get a chance, leave a review on iTunes so that others can find this podcast too! Just click here to review, select "Ratings and Reviews" and "Write a Review" We'd love to hear what your favourite part of this episode is in the comments below. Thank you!